Wasteland
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: The Swarm had been repelled from Settlement 1, but at the cost of hundreds of lives, and the complete destruction of Old Ephyra. Afterwards, Gears were deployed to scour the ruins. Delta included.


**Wasteland**

Ephyra. The capital of Tyrus. The jewel in the Coalition's crown. A centre of art, music, law, and culture. A shining beacon to the world as to what humanity could achieve under a stable and strong government. Ephyra. Now a burning wasteland that smelt of death and tears.

No-one spoke in the King Raven as it made its way over the wasteland that now bordered the Settlement 1 wall. Not "New Ephyra," Kait reflected. Not anymore. Mentioning "Ephyra" in any form seemed to be too much for a lot of people. The city had held out longer against the Locust than any bastion of COG power except Jacinto, and even after the grubs had overrun the place, it had fared better than most,. Days ago, as she'd fought her way through the ruins to plant the Hammer beacons, she'd seen the signs the Ministry of Preservation had erected. No-one would live in Ephyra again, but it could be restored to some extent. Plenty of ruins existed on Sera that had been preserved by the world's various governments. In time, Ephyra could join them. Be revered in the same way. Or not, as the case was. As the Swarm overran it. As the Hammer of Dawn reduced it to dust and ashes. New Ephyra, it seemed, would be forever known as Settlement 1. The first of the new cities of Tyrus, now the last remnant of human civilization in the world.

_Like Jacinto then, _Kait reflected. She looked at Del, then Fahz, then Marcus. _Or not._

She'd never been to Jacinto. But she'd seen the pictures. The ground ripped apart. Buildings at odd angles, still reaching up to the sky. A giant pool of water below it all, as the sea had poured into the Hollow. She hadn't grown up in the COG. Even now, over six months after putting on the uniform, she still didn't really consider herself part of it. But nevertheless, orders were clear. Sweep the ruins. Look for any survivors. If they were Gears, get them back home ASAP. If they were Swarm…well, have fun.

"Setting down Delta."

Even the pilot was refusing to take in banter, she reflected. As the squad got to their feet and Kait opened the door, she let out a silent curse. There was almost nothing here. Perhaps a few pillars, a few walls, but nothing. Yet she knew the area. They were setting down outside what had been the Tomb of the Unknowns. The place where…where it had happened.

"Godspeed."

"Yeah?" Fahz asked. "Well tell God to get on with it. Forty years, and the fucker's yet to turn up."

In spite of everything, Kait gave a small smile as Fahz led the way off the Raven. Fahz was trying. Failing, but trying. She'd spent long enough listening to him yammer on in Vasgar to know when he was being a natural asshole and when he had to work on it. A for effort. D for results. And F as the chance of salvaging anything from this city.

The Raven took off and Kait looked upwards. At it, at the other helicopters in the sky, at the winter sun.

"Alright," Del said. "Spread out, keep in touch every five minutes. Find a Gear, report back. Find a grub, down it." He looked at Marcus. "Barring any suggestions."

Marcus gave Del a withering glare.

"Fair enough. Fahz, with me. Kait…"

She nodded. Marcus said nothing, and did nothing.

"Right. Move out."

No-one said anything. Not even Fahz. Kait however, had plenty she could say at Del. That despite being Delta Squad's leader by virtue of rank, he was deferring to Marcus nine times out of ten. Also that while pairing her with Delta's NCO was sound in practice, she knew why. After what had happened a few days ago, Del couldn't look Marcus in the eye.

"Come on Kait," Marcus grunted.

Problem was, neither could she. "Sure," she whispered.

The two Gears moved through the ruins, or, rather, the space between the ruins. Loathe as she was to admit it, that so little in the Old City was left standing was a boon. If the Swarm approached Settlement 1 from this direction again, they'd have almost no cover available. Problem was, if the Swarm decided to ambush any Gears here, they'd have almost no cover either.

Except that didn't happen. They checked in five minutes after deploying. Then ten. Then fifteen. Del would call, Kait would respond, Fahz would try to say something funny, and Marcus would remain quiet. He'd keep walking, as if on auto-pilot, clutching his Lancer like a drowning man might a log. Kait remained silent as well, and for the same reasons. J.D. was dead. She'd watched him die right in front of her. And in the days that followed, all Marcus had left was his grief, while all she had left was her guilt. So it was actually a welcome surprise when she saw the grub crawling towards them.

"Hold up," she said.

Marcus obliged, even though as her superior, he should be the one giving the orders. She glanced at him, but no words came out. Instead, she returned her attention to the grub. A drone. One which was crawling towards her, its teeth barred, its skin scorched, its eyes wide and its throat making a guttural sound. Somehow, it had survived the Hammer strikes. Somehow, it had survived for days, crawling as its skin gave way to bone. And even now, bereft of any weapon or the means to use it, it was still trying to kill her.

"Hey," she said. She tapped her Lancer. "You know what this is?"

The drone growled and continued crawling towards her.

"That's right," Kait said. She squatted down. "Shoe's on the other foot now, isn't it? I rev this up, and I finish what the Hammer started."

The drone grabbed her boot, but it could barely move. It could only look at her and make noises like the animal it was.

"But hey, why rush things?" Kait whispered. "We've got all the time in the-"

The drone's head exploded as a shot rang out through the wasteland. Kait swore and sprung to her feet as blood and muscle splattered against her. "The hell?!" she exclaimed.

Marcus holstered the Boltok he'd just fired and looked at her. "We're not here to play games," he grunted, before walking on.

"_Kait?"_

She stood there, rooted to the spot.

"_Kait, what happened?"_

Still rooted as her mind processed that Del was contacting her. Steadying herself, she activated her comm piece. "Kait here. We're fine. Just got a grub."

"_We're fine? As in, you and Marcus?"_

"No-one else here," she murmured. She looked at Marcus, still wandering through the ruins. "No thanks to you."

"_Kait, I-"_

She shut the feed off and jogged after Marcus. He was still walking on, as if nothing had happened.

"Marcus."

And still kept walking as she caught up with him.

"Marcus, I…"

Kept walking as she tried to talk to him. As she looked at his face, and the way he clutched his Lancer. The proverbial log, only now his head was below the water.

"Okay," she said. "Fair enough. We've got a job to do. I mean, there might be Gears out here still."

He looked at her. "You believe that?" he murmured.

Kait said nothing. For Marcus, she knew that it barely mattered. There was no-one out here he could find that would change his life, that would reunite him with any friend or family member. And for her, her hopes weren't much better. Because even as the people of Settlement 1 put up "missing" posters for their loved ones, even as they bombarded the Army with inquiries, Kait suspected they knew the truth as well. Any Gear outside the walls who'd somehow survived the Swarm wouldn't have survived the Hammer strikes. If Settlement 1 was a new Jacinto, then the Hammer of Dawn was like the Hammer of Dawn strikes Chairman Prescott had ordered all those decades ago.

"I can hope," she said.

Marcus didn't say anything. He just kept walking through the wasteland. As did she. But passing by here, she couldn't help but see the shape of the earth. The ridge. The part where it had collapsed. The place where…where J.D. had died.

She lingered – even after the Hammer had scorched everything, she could still see the hole that she and Del had tumbled down. The place where the queen had emerged, bearing only the slightest resemblance to her mother in form, and no resemblance whatsoever in personality. This was where-

"Kait."

She glanced at Marcus. He'd stopped moving, and he'd walked back to her. "You alright?" he asked.

She almost laughed at the question. Was she alright? How could she be alright? And barring that, how could she claim to be alright when Marcus Fenix most certainly wasn't? Still struggling to find an answer, she let him walk over, coming to stand beside her. Looking at the same patch of dirt she was.

"Still got ground to cover," he murmured.

She nodded. "Yeah. Right."

"Unless you want to hang around. I mean, this place…"

She glanced back at the few pillars that were left of the Tomb of the Unknowns. She knew that this wasn't the first time Marcus had been here, but she didn't want to ask him about any ghosts he had from the past. The man looked like a ghost himself, and talked about as much as one. She saw it, Del saw it, his old squad mates saw it as well.

"We should move," she said. She began to head off.

"Yeah. This is where James died after all."

Kait's heart skipped a beat. Slowly, ever so slowly, as slow as the rotation of the world itself, she turned and looked at Marcus.

"Excuse me?" she whispered.

Marcus didn't meet her gaze. He just stood there. Staring at the hole in the ground.

"Marcus?"

"Del told me what happened," he murmured, still not facing her. "About Reyna. About how she captured him and James. How you saved Del, instead of my son." He glanced at her, his grey eyes boring into her blue ones, bereft of any display of emotion. "This is where Reyna killed him."

Reyna. The word by itself made Kait wince. But not nearly as Marcus's words themselves.

"Del said it was quick," Marcus continued. "Was it?"

She nodded, wishing Marcus would shout at her. That he'd do anything other than just speak in his simple sentences. That he'd show how much he hated her, because days after what had happened here…she hated herself.

"That's good to know," Marcus murmured. He started walking again. "Come on."

"Marcus."

He kept walking.

"Marcus, please…"

He stopped, and looked back at her. Perhaps he saw that she was trying to keep the tears back. It was hard to say, when her gaze was on the ground.

"I saved Del," she whispered. "I…I didn't think, I just did it. I had a knife, and I cut Rey…the queen's, tentacle, and…" She wiped her eyes. "And then she killed him. Right in front of me."

"Kait."

"God…" She dropped her Lancer and put a hand over her eyes, trying to steady her breathing. "I keep seeing it over and over. And I know if I'd saved James, you'd still have a son, and…and I…" She looked at Marcus. "Marcus, I'm so sorry…"

"Kait…"

"I know you hate me," she whispered. "Del…God, Del can't keep a secret to save his life, but that wasn't his burden to bear. So, I…"

"Kait," Marcus said. He put a hand on her shoulder. "You have nothing to apologize for."

"What?" she whispered.

"You saved Del. And you didn't kill James, the Swarm did. There's no way I'm going to hate you for what the grubs did to my…" He took a breath himself. "You were there for him. At the beginning, when he left the COG. And you were there for him at the end." He withdrew his hand and tightened his armour. "That's what matters."

Kait sniffed, wiped her eyes, and picked up her own rifle. It wasn't the most eloquent speech in the world, but it was honest. For all the colourful language J.D. had used to describe his father, "honest" was one of the few words of praise he'd given his father.

"Marcus?" Kait asked. She began walking beside him. "Do you think my mother…I mean the queen…think she's still alive?"

"Maybe," he grunted. "Have to see how the Swarm acts in the days ahead."

"Right…" She bit her lip, and took a breath, before asking, "you killed Myrrah, right? On Azura?"

Marcus looked at her.

"J.D. told me," she said. "Said you plunged a knife right into her stomach and left her to rot." Marcus looked away and kept walking. "Did it feel good?" she asked.

He stopped, and stared at her. "Thinking of doing the same thing?"

Kait drew out a knife from her belt. "The thought crossed my mind."

She didn't tell Marcus that it was the same blade she'd used to save Del, and in doing so, condemn J.D. to death. But the way he looked at it, at her…she suspected that he knew.

"I did it," Marcus said. "For a friend, more than anything else. Guy who lost everything, like you did." He glanced aside. "Like I did."

"Marcus…"

"It felt good." He looked back at her. "So when you do it, let her know. Tell her that when the knife enters her belly, that it's for James. For everyone. And from you."

Kait nodded and sheathed the blade. "I will," she said.

Marcus gave her a nod and began to walk again. And once more, Kait began to follow him.

Through the ruins of Old Ephyra.

Through the wasteland.

* * *

_A/N_

_So little tidbit, when it came to choosing whether to save Del or J.D., while my first inclination was to go with the latter, I went with the former. TBH, I think having J.D. die works much better narratively. That said, from what I've seen, I seem to be the exception here._

_Anyway, drabbled this up._


End file.
